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Internazionale’s return to the Champions League for the first time in six seasons will produce a flood of memories for the club’s fans, but few occasions will evoke as much nostalgia as their trip to Barcelona this week. Luciano Spalletti takes his team to the Camp Nou – the scene of a stirring triumph on their way to winning the competition in 2010 – knowing his players have a long journey ahead if they are to emulate José Mourinho’s treble winners.
The semi-final in 2010 pitted Mourinho against Pep Guardiola in an early instalment of a rivalry that has proven so enduring through the years. As ever, it was billed a clash of styles: Barça had won an unprecedented six trophies in 2009, they boasted the newly anointed Ballon d’Or winner, Lionel Messi, and were showing the world a brand of football most teams could only dream of playing.
Inter, meanwhile, were a somewhat less florid outfit. Mourinho had steered the club to a league and cup double in his first season but, even amid the traditionally cerebral fare of Serie A, he had faced criticism for his overly cautious approach. In Mourinho’s first season at the club, Inter scored 70 league goals; Barcelona, meanwhile, scored 105.
The semi-final was fraught with significance for Mourinho: his predecessor, Roberto Mancini, had won three consecutive Scudetti but paid the price for failing in Europe. He never really recovered from home and away defeats to Liverpool in the last-16 of the Champions League in 2008. Mourinho was hired a few weeks later, with the club hoping he would bring success on the continent. In Mourinho’s first season at Inter, he did no better than Mancini. Inter were outthought and outfought by Manchester United in the last-16 of the Champions League, with Mourinho left to rue his safety-first approach in the first leg, a goalless draw at the Giuseppe Meazza in which Inter did not produce a single shot on target.
The undeniable personal enmity developing between Barcelona and Mourinho also added some flavour to the tie. To many Barça fans he was still “the translator”, a pejorative reference to his stint as Bobby Robson’s assistant. A series of ill-tempered duels between Barcelona and Chelsea had only heightened the friction in recent years. On top of all that, Barcelona interviewed but overlooked Mourinho when Frank Rijkaard left in 2008, with the club ultimately opting to give Guardiola his first job in management.
Mourinho’s chilliness towards Barça had been apparent the previous summer when asked about Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s move from Milan to Catalonia: “I told him that if he wins the Champions League with Barcelona, he won’t be doing anything extraordinary, seeing as the Catalans have won it twice in three years. I like doing something extraordinary, not what’s normal.”
The narrative before the tie had focused on the perceived contrast between Barcelona’s exuberance and Inter’s pragmatism but, when the teams met at San Siro for the first leg, it was the Italian side who produced an unexpectedly thrilling display of high pressing and marauding attacking to roar into a 3-1 lead. Barcelona took the lead through Pedro but were outmanoeuvred by Mourinho’s explosive Inter, who scored through Wesley Sneijder, Maicon and Diego Milito.
Guardiola’s men had been forced to make an arduous 700km journey to Milan by coach as a result of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic ash cloud. “It is not the ideal thing, after you have played a league game, to travel for 14 hours to play a Champions League semi-final against a strong team,” said Guardiola. “It is not ideal. But the problem is a volcano and there is nothing we can do. In Barcelona, we will attack. We will put water on the pitch so the ball moves quicker, which they didn’t do here.”
Mourinho knew the tie was far from over and chose to deploy some mind games before the second leg by highlighting his former employers’ determination to win the Champions League at the Bernabéu, where the final was due to be played. “It is not a dream for Barça – it is an obsession,” said Mourinho. “The obsession is reaching the final in Madrid. I experienced what it is like here. I have won cups – against Betis in 1997 – at the Bernabéu, where everyone was wrapped in Catalan flags. I know what it is about – it is anti-Madridismo. It is an obsession. A dream is more pure than an obsession, an obsession is more about pride.”
An unperturbed Guardiola, however, was quick to dismiss suggestions he had a personal rivalry with the man he had pipped to the Barcelona job. “I have a very good relationship with Mourinho,” insisted Guardiola. “We haven’t exchanged phone numbers, but I consider him the best, and we’ll try to beat him.”
The atmosphere inside the Camp Nou throbbed with the roars of 96,000 enraptured fans during the second leg. Mourinho, as usual, was happy to play the role of pantomime villain on the touchline. Having warned of Barcelona’s appetite for theatrics before the game, he applauded sarcastically to jeers from Barça supporters when Thiago Motta was sent off in the 28th minute a highly dubious second yellow card. Motta had already been booked, but Sergio Busquets’ dramatic reaction to a high hand did the Inter player little favours with the referee.
Still, Mourinho’s well-drilled Inter proved unflinchingly obdurate in the face of Barcelona’s attack. Gerard Piqué’s late goal set up a frantic finale but the Italians held firm for a famous aggregate victory. Nothing could curb Mourinho’s euphoria as he surged on to the turf, enraging Barça fans and Victor Valdés alike with his exuberant celebrations.
“It’s the greatest moment of my career,” said Mourinho. “We were a team of heroes. We sweated blood.” It was a victory full of significance. Speculation was already rife that this season would be his last in Italy, intensifying after his post-match words: “I love Inter, but not Italian football.” He had sent a clear message to his prospective future employers, Real Madrid, by ensuring that Barcelona would not win the Champions League at the Bernabéu.
Mourinho’s provocative celebrations also torpedoed one of the last obstacles standing between him and Madrid: his personal connection with Barcelona. After the game, he accepted he would never follow in Robson’s footsteps. “I’m not stupid enough to think this hate can be turned into love,” he said. “I respect Barça and I’ll never forget what the club gave me in the four years I was here, but something has been created around me that is hard to make positive. It is clear that I will end my career without having coached Barça.”
Guardiola, for his part, was magnanimous after the defeat. “We lost to a great team and a great coach,” he reflected. “We will be back.” Mourinho had won this battle but, with the battle lines drawn, the two would be seeing a lot more of each other in the future.
• This article is from These Football Times
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